goner Rock 'n' Roll Always Forgets (CD, £1.75)

label: Bifocal Media

Somewhere amongst the witty, drunken, pop swagger of Guided By Voices; the quirky synth spazms of Devo; and the buzzing rock of the Ramones lies Goner's 3rd full length offering. Rock 'N' Roll Always Forgets reads like a diary/billboard for veteran college town rockers. Ageing, the bar scene, binge drinking, sport fucking, life postponement and adulthood vs. prolonged adolescence... After over 8 years of working and playing together, one might conclude that Goner should not be making rock music at all. They are not young, or even carefree. They have no use for trends, no interest in fashion. They are three people who work long hours in a bar, an office, a school. They have scarcely one expendable minute or one disposable dollar between them. They have long ago outgrown rock as a so-called lifestyle, taking on rents and mortgages, marriages, divorces and children. For years they have confronted love and money and fear and faith and labour on a daily basis. Carving hours upon hours of precious time out of such lives just to contribute to what is widely recognized as a dying artform, toiling in a consistently money-losing obscurity, at their age... well, any reasonable person would deem it foolish, frivolous, masochistic and pointless... But Goner is not a reasonable band and Rock 'N' Roll Always Forgets is not a reasonable album. It's an overwhelmingly passionate, hook filled, explosive album.